EFL Teachers' Perceptions, Evaluations and Expectations about English Language Courses as EFL in Saudi Universities

The focus of this study is to explore EFL teachers' perceptions, evaluations and expectations about English language courses as EFL in Saudi tertiary level. In other words, this article aims at creating a new avenue for effective EFL teaching-learning curriculum techniques and syllabus in the Saudi tertiary context. Saudi universities offer credit and non-credit Foundation English courses as a part of their program, which are not being very effective. These courses do not promote the students in dealing with their disciplines or programs oriented courses. Even after completion of the Foundation English courses in consecutive two or three semesters, students fail to grasp comprehensive control over the reading materials of their discipline-oriented courses. This is a common scenario in almost all the universities in KSA. The author of this paper ventured to study the predicament of EFL courses in some universities through survey questionnaires, observation as well as primary and secondary sources. The data were collected through questionnaires from a total of 25 EFL teachers at renowned Saudi universities. The research results revealed that the existing Foundation English Course syllabus is not tailored appropriately to the needs of the students so far as the higher studies concerned, and EFL classroom is not conducive to task-based language teaching (TBLT) practice due to large class size (100-140). It, therefore, suggests that university Foundation English Courses should be redesigned in assimilating the learners' standard and previous learning, and course contents should cover the socio-cultural factors of the learners. The study also concludes with some effective implications and recommendations based on the findings of the present research.